


Lost in the Snow

by tuppenny



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-04 12:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10991397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/pseuds/tuppenny
Summary: In which Tina deals with the emotional fallout from her near-murder at MACUSA, and Newt has to face his feelings if he's going to save the day.





	1. Central Park

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic, please don't eat me alive! <3
> 
> Got a little bit more already written, but the ending is still hanging, and I'm not sure when I'll get to it, but whatever, here's the first bit.

Tina jerks awake, hyperaware of the hand resting on her shoulder. “Who’s there! What is it!”

“Tina, sweetie, it’s me,” answers a honeyed voice. “You’re okay; it was just a dream. You’re safe in your bed, and I’m right here.”

“Oh, Queenie,” moans Tina, closing her eyes and thudding back onto her pillow. “I woke you up again, didn’t I? I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s not like you ever mean to.” Queenie sits down on Tina’s bed and rubs her sister’s back, loosening the damp nightgown clinging to Tina’s clammy skin. “Wanna talk about it?”

Shaking her head, Tina curls her hands to her chest and begins to sob, sweat and tears mingling on her cheeks.

Distress flits across Queenie’s face, but she clears her expression, tugs up the sleeves of her pink silk nightgown, and leans down to hug her older sister. “There, there,” she murmurs into Tina’s ear. “You’re safe, love, you’re safe.” She gently kisses her sister’s forehead and brushes away the strands of short, dark hair plastered to Tina’s cheek. Tina keeps her eyes squeezed shut, and, despite Queenie’s soft coos and reassurances, she can’t stop trembling. “Tina, honey, it’s okay. Newt got you out of that death cell, and--”

That was the wrong thing to say. Tina’s eyes fly open and she springs out of bed, stammering, “Don’t, please don’t, oh…”

Queenie rises and moves toward her sister, but Tina backs away, shuddering. She puts her hands out between them, warning her sister to stay away even as her eyes beg for comfort.

“Don’t look, Queenie! I don’t… you can’t…” Tina’s eyes dart back and forth as if she thinks she’ll find an explanation painted on the walls, but the only thing she sees in their shared bedroom is her sister’s face, wavering between empathy and worry. The two women remain frozen in this tableau for several seconds, with Tina crouching like a wounded animal and Queenie searching for the words to calm her sister’s panic.

Queenie starts to speak, but this breaks the moment and sends Tina racing out of the bedroom and into the kitchen, scrabbling for her coat. “No, no, no, don’t read me, stay out, stay back!” Flinging the apartment door open so wide that it bangs against the side of the oven, she disappears into the stairwell. And Queenie is left alone, listening to the echoes of her sister’s frantic footsteps fading into the dark January night.

 

Tina grows calmer as she walks. One block north, two blocks east, one block south, four blocks west… She’s been doing a lot of aimless walking lately. It’s the only thing she’s found that dampens her fear and wipes her mind clean enough for her to be able to keep sharing an apartment with Queenie. Those moments in the death cell had been among the worst of her life; she couldn’t live with herself if she passed that terror on to Queenie. Most of the time she can suppress the memories of those gunmetal waves rising up to claim her, dissolve her bones, and melt away her future, but in the night they come rushing back like quicksilver, swift and silent and hell-bent on devouring her soul.

Tina’s used to shouldering things alone. Ever since her parents died, leaving her and Queenie to navigate the magical and non-magical worlds by themselves, the eldest Goldstein daughter has been the surrogate mother, primary problem-solver, and emotional backbone of her little family of two. That’s not to say that Queenie is selfish or lazy—nothing could be further from the truth. A smile ghosts across Tina’s face as she thinks back to her childhood winters, when she would come home from an afternoon of Hebrew school to find an elementary school-aged Queenie proudly welcoming her back to an immaculate apartment and a meal of piping hot soup. Although Queenie’s cooking skills have improved since age seven, sometimes Tina still asks her sister to make the soup they’d eaten together so long ago, sitting cross-legged on the floor of their parents’ empty bedroom.

How far they’d come since then! They’d pulled themselves together after their parents’ deaths, survived their childhood in rough-and-tumble New York City, gotten a good education, and now they were both holding down steady jobs. And they were renting an entire apartment of their own, one with three whole rooms and a bathroom they shared with only eight other people. Oh, and they’d just saved New York City from the most dangerous dark wizard of the age, Gellert Grindelwald. Not bad for two orphaned, second-generation Americans. No doubt about it, these witches were a force to be reckoned with.

Tina closes her eyes in satisfaction and breathes in deeply, the cold air pricking the back of her throat and chilling her lungs. The two sisters were finally safe and settled, and that was because of Queenie’s hard work just as much as it was Tina’s. But no matter how grown-up and competent Queenie was, Tina was still the big sister, and she would not allow her trauma to burden her younger sibling. Particularly not when that younger sibling was a highly talented and tender-hearted Legilimens. Queenie’s unusual gift meant that she already shouldered too many sorrows that weren’t hers to bear. And that was why, night after night, Tina found herself wandering the streets of New York City alone, neither noticing nor caring where she went.

A puff of sound breaks Tina from her reverie. She whirls around, searching for the source of the noise, and realizes with a shock that she has walked all the way to Central Park. Scanning the park for people and animals, Tina decides that the noise was probably just the whoosh of snow sliding from the branches of a nearby pine tree. But the sudden noise has caused the residual fear from her dream to roar back to life, and she sinks to her knees, rocking back and forth in a desperate attempt to keep the raging silver waters from swallowing her up.

_Breathe, Tina, breathe—it’s okay, you’re alive, you’re safe, you’re not in the cell, you’re in Central Park. Central Park, Tina, Central Park. Think about Central Park. You like Central Park. Ice skating in winter, kite-flying in summer, and look, there’s the bridge where you found Newt’s suitcase…_ Tina straightens up with a gasp. Newt. She’d been studiously trying to avoid the places she’d been with Newt, and yet here she was, kneeling in the snow next to the very same bridge where she’d found Newt’s suitcase just a few weeks ago. _If only he hadn’t left his suitcase under the bridge, if only I hadn’t followed him to see him leave it here, if only I hadn’t taken it to the Ministry…_

Tina starts to cry. All she’d wanted to do was protect her city and the people –well, person—she loved, and she’d done that, but at what cost? She was alive, yes, but she was scared, oh so scared, irredeemably scared. When everything was happening she’d pushed her fears aside the way she’d learned to do while working as an Auror. Fear wasn’t productive; it got in the way of doing her job, and she’d long since learned how to ignore it until she had time to process it. But after Newt left, all the fear she’d built up over the last few days came rushing to the surface, leaving her woozy with its force. It was simply too much fear for her to handle, and, weeks later, it was still there. The silvery waves, Credence’s haunted eyes, Grindelwald’s cold sneer, and apocalyptic visions of all the horrible things that could happen to Queenie –and, yes, to Newt– form a constant, menacing hum beneath the whir of her thoughts. And she can’t make it stop.

***

Somewhere in England, gentle morning light wakes Newt up from a particularly improbable dream about hinkypunks. He yawns and stretches, sending several puffskeins tumbling off his chest. Emitting grumpy squeaks, they scurry off to find breakfast. Newt rubs his eyes and ruffles his hair with both hands, shaking out bits of straw and a couple of ladybugs. Sleeping in a griffin’s nest always results in a severe case of bedhead, but that’s never bothered Newt; for all that he dresses properly, the concept of vanity is utterly foreign to him.

Although he was born to wealthy parents who insisted you could take the measure of a man by the cut of his suit and the knot in his tie, Newt views clothes in the same way he views a bird’s feathers or a leopard’s spots: potentially beautiful, but essentially nothing more than functional adaptations. Just as the poison dart frog uses the brilliant blues and reds of its skin to ward away predators, Newt uses smart, tasteful clothing to facilitate human interaction. As a child he’d resented his mother’s efforts to dress him up like Little Lord Fauntleroy, but as he grew up and became achingly aware of how hard it was for him to hold a conversation without disappointing the other person, to figure out when to employ which social niceties, or even to make the eye contact his mother insisted was so important, he realized that clothes were his first line of defense. The better he dressed, the worse his social skills were allowed to be. Simply by donning a stylish waistcoat, Newt moves from “inexcusably rude” to “endearingly eccentric.” Clothes are, in short, a useful evolutionary adaptation that Newt usually deploys with remarkable skill and always with an utter lack of arrogance.

At the moment, though, Newt looks more like an overgrown ragamuffin than the world’s leading magizoologist. His starched white shirt is wrinkled and half unbuttoned, his trousers are stained with griffin snot, and he’s not sure where his shoes and socks have wandered off to. Judging by the black shoelace dangling from the beak of the baby griffin crouched next to him, though, he won’t be seeing them again anytime soon.

Newt gives the baby griffin a fond pat on the head and climbs stiffly out of the nest, heading towards the barn where he keeps the animal feed. He turns his face towards the artificial sun rising inside his suitcase, savoring the feel of golden light on his arms and cool earth under his feet. Mornings are Newt’s favorite time of day. He loves greeting his creatures by name, seeing them rise from sleep, stretch, and start their daily routines. He loves feeding them and watching them hurry towards their breakfasts, he loves listening to the contented clicking and snuffling sounds they make as they eat, he loves the shift from the animals’ nighttime silence into their gloriously noisy days. _No,_ Newt thinks, _I wouldn’t trade these peaceful hours for anything._

His reverie is interrupted by a persistent rapping sound. Someone –or something– is hammering away on Newt’s battered suitcase. Or no, wait, is that the sound of a bird pecking on leather? Newt pauses, cocks his head, and closes his eyes, so as to listen more carefully. Yes, that’s definitely pecking, not hammering. Newt relaxes; he never enjoys interacting with people, but he particularly hates when they disturb his mornings.

Newt whispers a charm to project his voice up to the outside world and calls, “A moment, please, I’m a bit far from the door just now.” The pecking continues for a moment, and then stills. _Probably an owl,_ he thinks idly; the resonance of the pecking was too thin to be a sea hawk or a hippogriff.

Sure enough, when Newt unlatches the suitcase from the inside and pokes his head out into the drafty room he’s renting in the English countryside, he’s face to face with an agitated barn owl. Newt is on high alert now—he knows this owl, and its arrival means only one thing: Tina is in trouble.

Jaw clenched, Newt leaps out of the suitcase. He chirps a thank you to the owl, and then says, “There’s rabbit meat in the barn, same shelf as always. Ask Pickett to help you if you can’t get the case open; he might act like he doesn’t know how, but he does.”

The owl flaps its wings and clacks its beak before dropping the rusty fork it had been holding in his talons.

“Right, thanks, I’m going to need that.” The owl bobs its head and makes ready to fly into the suitcase when Newt blurts, “Is she… I mean, how bad…” Hearing the anxiety in his own voice, he snaps his mouth shut. The owl pauses and tilts its head to the left. Newt squeezes his eyes closed for half a second, takes a deep breath, and then says, “Never mind. Worry once, suffer twice. Go eat that rabbit, Franklin.”

As soon as the owl is safely inside the leather case, Newt slams the lid and flips the golden clasps shut. Then he grabs the sturdy brown suitcase handle in his right hand and, screwing up his eyes, he grips the rusty fork firmly in his left hand. As his fingers close around the dented piece of silverware, he feels a nauseating tug on his navel, and the world collapses into nothingness around him.

***

Still in Central Park, Tina is huddled next to the bridge where she found Newt’s suitcase. She can hardly feel her feet anymore, and her hair is sprinkled with delicate snowflakes. While some part of her mind knows she needs to go home and get warm if she doesn’t want to lose any toes to frostbite, most of her is simply grateful for the numbness. And still another part of her, a sharp, contrarian part, wants to see if she can push this farther, invite the cold in deeper.

Tina is a rule-follower, committed to hierarchy. Her unfailing propriety often earned the laughter of classmates and resulted in several unflattering nicknames, but Tina never budged. And although Queenie has spent years trying to get her to loosen up, just a bit, Tina remains frustratingly by-the-book. Her sister might be surprised to know that Tina doesn’t have any intrinsic attachment to social norms or laws; in fact, she finds an awful lot of them to be unbearably silly or outright harmful.

No, Tina doesn’t follow rules because she values obedience. She follows rules because she’s always been keenly aware of a devilish voice inside her, a nagging little beast that’s constantly pricking her to do the exact opposite of what everyone thinks she should. She listens to the voice judiciously, allowing it to guide her only when societal expectations and professional rules conflict with her own morals. Stepping in to save Credence from a beating, for instance, or following a man with a case full of magical beasts even when she’d been removed from her duties as an auror. But tonight her good sense, grown sluggish with the cold, is no match for Tina’s goading inner demon.

 _Unbutton your coat, let’s see how cold it really is. How much pain can you really handle, you weakling? Not much, I bet._ Tina’s stiff fingers fumble with the top buttons of her double-breasted coat. She gasps as the first row comes undone and the frigid air hits her nightgown. And even though it’s beginning to hurt to breathe, she chokes out a laugh. Had she known that pain could be blissful? 

_That’s it, that’s it, now the second set of buttons. Come on, Tina, you deserve this. You know you do. You didn’t save your parents, you didn’t save Credence, you didn’t save Graves._ Tears leave icy tracks on Tina’s cheeks. The voice is right. Her life is one long string of failures. She failed to be a good daughter, a good auror, a good colleague. _What use are you, anyway? All you do is make your sister sad—you saw her face earlier tonight. You should’ve let them kill you. You should’ve given up. Newt could never love someone like you._ It hurts, but it’s true.  


Slowly, mutely, Tina moves to undo the next two buttons.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tina doesn't say very much and Newt says more than he probably meant to.

Newt slams onto the filthy roof of a brick apartment building, the impact knocking his leather case out of his right hand and sending him to his knees. Breathing heavily, Newt drops the rusty fork and blinks several times.

“Thank heavens that actually worked,” he mutters under his breath. He reaches out for the suitcase, pulls it close, and deftly snaps the golden locks open once more.

“Hullo, Franklin?” He calls into the suitcase. “I forgot to ask you where she was.” An uncanny hissing noise rises from the case, and Newt nods. “Thanks.” He snaps the case shut again and sits back on his heels, scanning the skies around him. “Well, there are a lot of bridges in Central Park, but that does narrow it down. Stroke of luck that I’ve been there before, to be frank.” As he sits on the quiet rooftop, his body starts to register the chill of snow soaking through his trousers and melting under his bare feet. He shakes his head vigorously, snowflakes flying from his hair. “I’ll have to apparate,” he muses, “but I’m not sure I can picture it well enough…” Newt cocks his head, trying to visualize a specific place in Central Park. “There was that one bridge…” He screws his eyes shut, coaxing the image of a stone footbridge to the front of his mind. “Yes, best to start there.” With his eyes still shut and his jaw firmly set, Newt hefts his suitcase and disappears from the rooftop, vanishing just as quickly as he arrived.

 ***

Less than an eyeblink later, Newt lands in a deep snowbank just to the side of a pathway in Central Park. His bare feet throb with the pain of the cold, but Newt shoves that aside for later. Where’s the footbridge? And, more importantly, where is Tina? He spins around, stumbling a bit, looking for landmarks he recognizes. His view is blurred by wind-whipped snowflakes, which fall harder and harder with each passing minute.

There! There’s the footbridge. And under the bridge—a hat without an owner? Tina wears a dark cloche hat like that, but why is it sitting on the ice and not on her head? He races to pick up the hat, arms windmilling as he slips on the frozen creek. “Tina!” He yells. No response. He has Tina’s hat in a deathgrip now, his chest is heaving from too-short breaths, and his shirt, still only halfway buttoned, flaps in the wind.

Frantic now, Newt races back onto the bank to check the other side of the footbridge. And there—could it be? A tall, thin figure in a gray coat, dark hair almost completely covered in snow. Oh dear heavens, it’s her, it’s Tina, and suddenly he’s gabbling her name, lurching through the snowdrifts to reach her, all thoughts of propriety and good sense and his freezing feet swept completely out of his head.

He falls in a heap at her side and realizes in an even greater panic that her coat is unbuttoned, her gloves are gone, and her cheeks are a pallid shade of blue.

“Tina?” He whispers, reaching a trembling hand to cradle the side of her face.

She turns to him slowly, eyes not entirely focused. “Newt?” She smiles. “What a nice dream this is.” She lifts her hand to press his tentative fingers against her cheek, eyes widening in surprise as she feels the warmth in his skin and the callouses on his palm.

“Oh, Tina, oh, please, please be alright.” Newt’s hazel eyes fill with tears, and his eyes dart back and forth across her face, revealing nearly as much vulnerability as he’d shown when MACUSA took away his suitcase.

Tina laughs faintly. “This is what’s best, Newt. Now you can be happy with Leta, Queenie can be happy with Jacob, and I, well…. No one needs me. I’m a burden to all of you. Just let me sleep, Newt. I’m so tired.”

Newt’s eyes flash. He yanks his hand away from her face, jams her hat on her head, and begins buttoning up her coat.

“That’s not true, Porpentina Goldstein, and you know it. Queenie needs you, she always has.”

Tina’s eyes flutter closed. “No. You don’t know what she sees when she reads my thoughts. I… I can’t hurt her like that anymore.”

“Tina. Tina?” No response. He shakes her by the shoulders, but her head only lolls limply towards her chest. “Tina,” he pleads desperately. “Come on, Tina. Don’t give up.” His voice cracks. “Please. Please, Tina. Queenie needs you. I… I need you.” He draws a deep breath. “I think I love you.” She’s a ragdoll in his arms.

_Fine,_ Newt thinks. _Fine. If she won’t listen to me now, I’ll make her listen later. I am not going to let her die. Not when I’ve finally found a human who…_ He has to stop there. He’s not ready to acknowledge that, in Tina, he’s found a person who actually sees him. Him, Newt, the man who disgraced his family and never fit in at school and lives in his own head, the man who loves his animals more than he loves himself, the man who makes others uncomfortable with his shyness and darting eyes and awkward conversation.

She sees all of that in him, yes, but she also sees so much more. Things even he himself hadn’t known were there, things that, thanks to her, he’s just now starting to discover. In the past month he's felt like an apple tree reveling in the warm kiss of spring. He wants to see that apple tree bloom, share the blossoms with her, grow her an orchard and help her climb to the very tops of the trees. Tina sees his flaws and his failings, and she cares for him despite –perhaps even because of– all of that. He cannot lose her. He can’t. He won't.

“And that’s a promise, you stubborn witch,” he growls, turning to unlatch his battered suitcase. He flings the lid open and then crunches through the snow to get behind Tina, bracing his feet so as to get better leverage to move her. It’s not going to be easy; she’s as tall as he is and her long, thick coat is sodden, but he’s got years of experience lifting sacks of animal feed and carrying reluctant erumpent babies to the river for their baths. He grits his teeth, slides his arms underneath her armpits, drags her across the frozen ground, and lowers her into the suitcase. Face red from exertion, Newt hops in after Tina and slams the lid shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got stuck at a friend's house without my work laptop yesterday, so I had time to think of an ending! I want to let it sit a little bit to make sure I'm okay with the phrasing, but I'll post it soon-- maybe as soon as tomorrow :)
> 
> Thanks so much to those of you who've commented and left kudos and read part 1-- you've made my week.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Tina wakes up and Newt makes a speech.

Birdsong. Daylight. And constant, pulsing pain. Tina gasps, and her eyes snap open to see that she is lying... outside? Where is she? And why does everything hurt? She shifts gingerly to her left and there, not more than a handsbreadth away, sits a tall young man. He is slumped over in sleep, his unruly hair gleaming like polished copper in the sun. He looks familiar, this place looks familiar, she should recognize him, she knows she's missing something important, but her brain won't cooperate, her thoughts won't settle, and by the golem's teeth, why does everything _hurt?_

_Breathe, Tina, breathe. Count seven in, hold three, count eight out. One thing at a time. That's it. Now. You know this man. Who is he?_

She studies him intently. His hair hangs over most of his face, but she can make out a sharp, freckled chin and thin lips. His shirt is missing most of its buttons, causing the fabric to gape and reveal the man's bare chest. He's wiry and fit, clearly someone used to manual labor, and she blushes even as she catalogues these facts. Her eyes quickly scan over his lanky legs, which are folded under him like a nesting stork, and move to his feet. 

_Oh heavens, his feet._ They are heavily bandaged, and the gauze covering his soles is brown with dried blood. How did he lose a full layer of skin? That didn’t come from walking on rocks, and he hasn't been burned; it's like he was running on something that tore away his flesh. Maybe… maybe he was running on… _Ice._

Tina flinches as everything from last night comes flooding back. Her nightmare, how she fled the apartment, the devilish side of her mind that told her she was useless, she was worthless, just sit still and undo one more button of your coat… She shakes her head rapidly to banish the memory. She doesn't have the strength to fight her shame and panic right now, so she shoves all of that down and turns back to look at the sleeping man. He must have found her by the footbridge and saved her, but why would he go out onto the ice to do that? And barefoot, no less? What kind of lunatic would...

 _Newt?_ She blinks. It can't be. She's dreaming. She learned ages ago that just because you want something to be true doesn't make it so, even though your mind will do its best to catch you unawares and convince you otherwise. But she wants him to be real. She needs him to be real. And so, beginning to cry, she stretches out her hand to touch Newt and break the illusion. 

Her fingers brush his cheek. It's real. He's real. He's soft and warm in the sunlight, and he's real, and he's here, and he came for her. And suddenly she's sobbing desperate, ugly sobs, and her face is screwed up and her nose is running and she can hardly see for the tears, and Newt --real, live, flesh and blood Newt-- lifts his head at the noise and raises his hand to her touch, clasping her fingers tightly in his own. 

“Tina, oh, Tina, shhh, you're safe, you're safe. I'm here. You're safe.” His voice is gentle and kind and thick with sleep, and this only makes her bawl harder. “Shhh, shh,” he murmurs, drawing her into his arms. She buries her head in his shoulder and clings to him, her tears soaking into his shirt. His nose flattens against her scalp as he bends to kiss her hair, and her sobs subside into choking hiccups. 

After several minutes, Tina mumbles, “I'm getting snot all over your shirt. I'm so sorry.” 

She feels his laugh vibrate through his chest. “Actually, you're doing me a favor. Now I'll have human bogeys on my shirt to go with the griffin bogeys on my trousers. It's a matching set,” he says, and inclines his head to kiss her hair again. 

_What a dear, dear man,_ she thinks, and takes a deep breath to calm herself. He smells of sweat, fresh hay, and cinnamon. “But really, Newt, I'm so sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” she says, as fresh tears prick behind her eyes.

“Tina, there's nothing to apologize for.”

“Nothing to apologize for? You were all the way in England, you have important work, and your poor feet!” 

He pushes her backwards and looks her straight in the eyes. “Porpentina Goldstein, no more of this nonsense. Transatlantic travel is quick with a portkey, my feet have been through far worse, and as for my work, well…” He swallows, blinks, and his eyes dart away. “You are far more important than my work.” 

Tina's jaw drops. “But Newt, you don’t… you can’t… _Look_ at me! I'm a mess. And your book, you've got to focus on your book.”

“Devil take the book!” Newt says, gripping her shoulders so tightly that his knuckles go white. He relaxes his grasp when he sees her wincing, but he doesn’t let go. Instead, he looks in disbelief at his hands on her shoulders, eyes widening, as if he’s fighting the urge to pull away. But then he simply blinks, sets his jaw, and, pushing away all of his anxiety, all of his reticence, all of the silence that keeps him safe, he cracks his heart open for her. 

“Tina, I… I'm sure I'm doing this all wrong, I always do when it comes to people, but I love you. We're both broken and difficult, and goodness knows we're both terrible at asking for help when we need it, but please-- let me help you. I want to help you. And I want you to help me.” His throat is tight and every instinct he has is screaming at him to stop, to be quiet, to run away and return to his life before Tina. But he can’t, and even if he could, he wouldn’t. Merlin’s beard, he _loves_ this brilliant, beautiful, damaged woman, and she needs to know that. So he rushes on. “Tina. I will not let you struggle alone. You can’t ask me to leave you and let you hurt, because I love you more than anyone, more than… more than any _creature_ I've ever met. You're patient and loyal and so bloody stubborn you'd put a mule to shame, and when I saw you lying there in the snow like that, you… I...” his voice catches, and he looks up towards the sky. “Just… don't ever do that to me again, Tina. I love you, and I need you, and I refuse to let you think otherwise.” He takes a shuddering breath, squeezes his eyes shut, and drops his head. 

Tina stares at him, open-mouthed. She's never heard him say that many words at once before. She lays a chapped palm on his cheek and lifts his face up so that it’s level with hers. “Newt,” she whispers, “You wonderful, caring, reckless man. I love you, too. More than I ever thought possible.” She takes a moment to marvel at this soft-spoken Englishman, who crossed an ocean for her when she hadn’t even realized she’d needed him to. She knows from experience that such devotion springs from pain, from decades of quiet hurt that have marked him with worry lines and fostered a fierce determination to shield others from harm. _Yes,_ she thinks, _Newt is a protector. Just like me._ And her heart aches with the knowledge that, for both of them, being a protector doesn’t just mean keeping others safe from the world-- it means keeping others safe from the weight of your own sorrow. 

But where has that gotten them? She can’t sleep through the night, and he spends his days studiously avoiding his own emotions. She realizes that, by coming back for her, Newt has opened a door for both of them. He knows she’s hurting, and he’s offered his help. And he’s asked for hers. Tina feels that she’s teetering on the threshold of something new and terrifying and unimaginably wonderful here, and that what she says in the next few seconds will either push the two of them out into the sunlight or keep her --and possibly him-- stumbling in the dark. She doesn’t want that darkness for herself anymore. And she doesn’t want that darkness for him, either. No, she wants to be more than what she is. More than what she thinks she can be. She’s done molding herself into the stoic heroine; she’s going to be braver than any stoic ever could be, starting right now. And although she’s shaking with the fear of it, she’s going to start by acknowledging her vulnerability and brokenness. She’s going to do it, she’s going to ask others --she’s going to ask Newt-- to help her with that weight. 

Squaring her shoulders, Tina continues. “You’re right, Newt. We can help each other. We can change. I’d like that.” She feels lighter with every word. “In fact,” she says, her face brightening, “I’d like that very much. As broken as we may be, I won't give up on myself, and I won't give up on you, and,” she pauses as Newt opens his eyes, and smiles at the joy and love she sees reflected back at her. “And we'll figure this out. Together.” 

Newt doesn’t know whether to laugh, or cry, or just sit here forever, gazing at the woman he loves, her face streaked with tears and her eyes shining with hope. And so he does none of those things. Instead, he leans forward, brushes Tina’s dark hair back from her face, and kisses her. He moves carefully, slowly, tenderly, and she relaxes into him. Newt pulls her still closer as the kiss deepens, abandoning himself to the taste of her mouth and the warmth of her body. Tina’s eyelashes flutter against Newt’s cheek, and her hands wind into his hair, and they kiss, reveling in the gift of sharing hardships and the safety of each other’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do you think the UK/US time difference works in the suitcase? I have no clue.
> 
> Also, if you don't like the last two chapters, just sub this in instead: ~~AND NEWT FLIES IN ON A DRAGON AND SAVES THE DAY THE END~~
> 
> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! :)


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